Jeff Smith - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Jeff Smith
" There are different norms of exchange in all societies—all have a mix of normative rules " John... more " There are different norms of exchange in all societies—all have a mix of normative rules " John Davis, Forms and Norms: The Economy of Social Relations (1973:172). The main focus or interest in comparative economics in the last three decades has shifted from comparing socialism and capitalism and has now shifted to a focus on the transition from socialism to capitalism. This new orientation of comparative economics has recently shifted to a look at the economic effects of the various institutions of capitalism, ignoring the fact that multiple economic systems coexist and overlap as a set of different cultural rules or norms for economic activity. Equally disturbing is the trend in seeing economic activity as norms or modes of exchange and consumption, ignoring resource extraction, modes of production, transportation, distribution, and environmental impact or environmental management. Rarely do we see economist look beyond capitalism, socialism and feudalism to compare economic systems and thus we often fail to see multiple competing and coexisting economic systems in the capitalist and developing world let alone the post-socialist transition. It is interesting that the hidden economy remains hidden from economic studies, but remains central to economic anthropology because of the way in which ethnographic methods reveal the culture or institutional rules for human conduct rather than the rich statistical data provided by economists. The qualitative methods of ethnography should enrich the quantitative methods of mainstream economists interested in how economic systems function, but also to help reveal why they don't function, why they change, and how they are linked to wider questions of culture and social norms. In 1978, Stuart Henry wrote that the " hidden-economy " was governed by " rules, customs and traditions " that make it very difficult for economists to understand why people engage in hidden economic activities. Hidden economic activities have been thought of as " irrational " much like gambling, gift giving, potlach, and conspicuous consumption. Comparative economic anthropology reveals that even with our capitalist system, we have not one economy but a number of component economies and thus we have not one system, but multiple systems. While most of our studies focus on comparative systems of exchange, most societies have multiple systems of exchange, if we look at economic systems as more than exchange relationship we can see that there are multiple systems of production or modes of production, multiple rules for consumption and environmental management, in fact multiple economic systems hidden beneath the facade of a monolithic capitalism system relentlessly incorporating any alternative on a global scale. In the 1990s I went to Hungary because I wanted to understand the transition from socialism to capitalism and found that such a transition was a façade. In 2002, I wrote about how diarchies lead to double binds and double binds are social relations based on mutually exclusive imperatives causing people to feel trapped, caught, or stuck in impossible situations (Smith 2002). I showed that this theory worked to explain such social behaviors such as suicide, alcoholism, corruption, patron-client relations, and moonlighting, but never fully connected double binds to economy systems and instead focused primarily on the political systems that create diarchies. Here I wish to explore how multiple economic systems create double bind
" There are different norms of exchange in all societies—all have a mix of normative rules " John... more " There are different norms of exchange in all societies—all have a mix of normative rules " John Davis, Forms and Norms: The Economy of Social Relations (1973:172). The main focus or interest in comparative economics in the last three decades has shifted from comparing socialism and capitalism and has now shifted to a focus on the transition from socialism to capitalism. This new orientation of comparative economics has recently shifted to a look at the economic effects of the various institutions of capitalism, ignoring the fact that multiple economic systems coexist and overlap as a set of different cultural rules or norms for economic activity. Equally disturbing is the trend in seeing economic activity as norms or modes of exchange and consumption, ignoring resource extraction, modes of production, transportation, distribution, and environmental impact or environmental management. Rarely do we see economist look beyond capitalism, socialism and feudalism to compare economic systems and thus we often fail to see multiple competing and coexisting economic systems in the capitalist and developing world let alone the post-socialist transition. It is interesting that the hidden economy remains hidden from economic studies, but remains central to economic anthropology because of the way in which ethnographic methods reveal the culture or institutional rules for human conduct rather than the rich statistical data provided by economists. The qualitative methods of ethnography should enrich the quantitative methods of mainstream economists interested in how economic systems function, but also to help reveal why they don't function, why they change, and how they are linked to wider questions of culture and social norms. In 1978, Stuart Henry wrote that the " hidden-economy " was governed by " rules, customs and traditions " that make it very difficult for economists to understand why people engage in hidden economic activities. Hidden economic activities have been thought of as " irrational " much like gambling, gift giving, potlach, and conspicuous consumption. Comparative economic anthropology reveals that even with our capitalist system, we have not one economy but a number of component economies and thus we have not one system, but multiple systems. While most of our studies focus on comparative systems of exchange, most societies have multiple systems of exchange, if we look at economic systems as more than exchange relationship we can see that there are multiple systems of production or modes of production, multiple rules for consumption and environmental management, in fact multiple economic systems hidden beneath the facade of a monolithic capitalism system relentlessly incorporating any alternative on a global scale. In the 1990s I went to Hungary because I wanted to understand the transition from socialism to capitalism and found that such a transition was a façade. In 2002, I wrote about how diarchies lead to double binds and double binds are social relations based on mutually exclusive imperatives causing people to feel trapped, caught, or stuck in impossible situations (Smith 2002). I showed that this theory worked to explain such social behaviors such as suicide, alcoholism, corruption, patron-client relations, and moonlighting, but never fully connected double binds to economy systems and instead focused primarily on the political systems that create diarchies. Here I wish to explore how multiple economic systems create double bind